Bring your GoPro on your white water rafting trip!
GoPro on the River: Tips for Capturing Your Rafting Adventure
Whitewater rafting is the kind of experience you’ll want to relive long after you’ve dried off – and a GoPro is hands down the best way to capture it. Built for the outdoors and touch enough to handle whatever the river throws at it, a GoPro is a far smarter choice than bringing your phone. One unexpected swim and that $1,000 device is gone forever. The river gods are not known for their generosity.
Here’s everything you need to know to make the most of your GoPro on the water:
Know your GoPro Before You Hit the Water
There’s nothing worse than missing the best rapid of the day because you couldn’t figure out which button does what. If you’re picking up a new GoPro before your trip, do yourself a favor and spend some quality time with it beforehand – not on the river, but at home where mistakes don’t cost you anything.
- Power it up and shut it down until it’s instinctive
- Calibrate your voice controls (if your model has that feature) – shouting “GoPro, start recording” is a lot easier than fumbling with buttons in a moving raft
- Switch between photo, video and slow-motion modes until changing them takes zero thought
- Test the zoom so you know exactly how far back you need to be to fit the whole group in the shot
- Record something long – a hike, a drive, an afternoon in the backyard – and see how the battery actually holds up under real use
The river moves fast. The more automatic your GoPro feels in your hands, the more of it you’ll actually capture.
Where to Mount Your GoPro
The helmet mount is the go-to for a reason – it keeps your hands free, stays secure in rough water and puts the camera right at eye level for natural-looking footage. The good news is that helmets are provided to all our rafting guests, so you don’t need to bring your own.
For mounting, we recommend the vented helmet strap – our helmets have the right holes for it and it locks the camera down tight. Curved adhesive mounts also work well, and some of our helmets may already have one attached. That said, bring a fresh one just to be safe – adhesive that’s already been through a few river days isn’t something you want to trust with your camera.
Once you’re on the water, you’ve got options. The most common setup is the one person in the raft wearing the helmet-mounted GoPro throughout the trip. But our guides can also rig a helmet to the front of the raft facing back toward the group – perfect for capturing everyone’s expression mid-rapid. Flip it around to face downriver and you’ve got a whole different angle on the action.
Play around with both setups. Some of the best footage comes from angles you didn’t plan.
Battery Life & Storage
A fully charged GoPro with a 128GB+ SD card will typically get you three to four hours of continuous video – which is plenty for a half-day trip. No backup needed, just make sure you start the day with a full charge and an empty card.
For full-day trips, it’s worth throwing one or two extra charged batteries and a spare SD card in your dry bag, just in case you go trigger-happy on the rapids. On overnight and multi-day adventures, pack everything you think you’ll need and then some – there’s no power and no way to offload media once you’re out there. What you bring in is what you’ve got for the entire trip.
A simple rule of thumb: one battery and one card per day on the water, plus one extra of each as a buffer.
A Few Final Tips
GoPros are tough, but they’re not buoyant – drop one in the river and it’s gone. Save yourself the heartbreak and pick up a Floaty It’s a simple, inexpensive fix that keeps your camera on the surface if things go sideways.
The other tip? Talk to your guide. When you meet them at the start of the day, let them know what you’re hoping to capture – action shots through the big rapids, underwater footage, group photos at a swimming hole. Your guide knows every bend in that river and can set you up in the right spot at the right moment. They’re not just there to keep you safe – they can also help you come home with footage worth actually watching.
Share Your Adventure – and Earn a Free Trip
We never get tired of watching what our guests come home with. Family vacations, corporate outings, youth groups, couples, solo adventures – every video tells a different story, and we love seeing them all. If you post yours on social media, tag us so we can cheer you on.
And here’s something even better: send us your video and your next trip is on us.
No catch. If you email us an mp4 of your rafting footage, we’ll send you a Dropbox link to upload it – and in return, you’ll get a free half-day or full-day trip for one. Just reach out to info@tributarywhitewater.com to get the ball rolling.
Good footage. Free rafting. Sounds like a pretty good deal to us.
Watch our videos!
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